For a long time, I had no love for Valentine's Day. I know a lot of you can relate.

Whether you had a bad experience (or a string of them), or think this is a “Hallmark Holiday” made up to milk us out of money, or believe that you should bring home flowers, chocolates or cards to the one you love throughout the year and don't appreciate being told when to do it, it all ends up the same – we don't like Valentine's Day.

When I was little, it was super cute. My brother and I would get one of those Whitman's chocolate samplers every year from my mom. Those were awesome. I'd also get a little heart-shaped card with Strawberry Shortcake or Snoopy on it. My brother would get Scooby-Doo or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or something like that – I didn't pay much attention. But as I got older, I realized that I didn't like anything about this day.

In elementary school, there were the girls who got piles of pink and red envelopes on their desks and the girls whose desks were bare. In middle school, there were the girls who had lockers full of carnations and the girls whose lockers were full of spiral-bound notepads and science books. In high school, there were groups of boys gathered around girls of a certain small-town school status and girls who went about their day moving from class to class trying not to notice all the pink and red and the fact that nobody was noticing them.

I'm not going to say which girl I was but I will say that I grew to dislike this day, regardless. Plus, pink and red are simply hideous together.

Then, my best friend had a baby boy. I was in the hospital room when he was born. I was outside the nursery with her watching him through the glass. Newborns are difficult to tell apart. That may seem rude, but it's true. As the visitors around us pointed and shook their heads, we knew exactly which baby we were looking at. All the other scrunchy-faced, squiggly babies stretched out their tiny arms, kicked their tiny feet and screamed their tiny lungs out in their pink or blue baby beanies. The little lovebug we were staring at with stupid grins on our faces had a white hat on his head with hearts embroidered all around the sides. The only one in the nursery.

Valentine 's Day was forever transformed for me. It wasn't a day announcing whether you were single, divorced, searching or solitary. It wasn't a day comparing whose significant other cared more or gave more or spent more.

It was a birthday. A very special birthday. Today, that little baby in the hospital nursery wearing the white hat with red hearts on it will be 19 years old. And I can officially say I have loved Valentine's Day for 19 whole years.

Sarah Brentyn is a mom, freelance writer and blogger who enjoys good books and good wine. Email her at sarahbrentyn@gmail.com.